At the past few gaming events the topic of doing some large group project has come up again and again. Job has been the initiator of these conversations on several occasions, so this thread is largely due to him showing that there is some interest in the concept instead of it being one of my usual wacky and impossible pipe-dreams.Most of us who are interested in historical games have our own favorite periods and areas of interest, be they Napoleonics, Colonials or Ancients. As a result, we all have our own mini (or maxi) projects going on, or we work with a partner to recreate a mutual area of interest. Where our interests do overlap, everyone has their own forces and they can lead to some unique alliances on the tabletop. So the idea for this discussion, and that's all that this is at this stage, is to see how much interest there is in doing something as a large group and if it is possible to direct our energies in the same direction to put on a historically accurate depiction of a famous battle or event. This will require a certain level of commitment from all who decide to get involved and also a certain level of maturity (we're doomed) if your own idea is not one that is used at the end of the day.

For the time being, the suggestion is to use Black Powder (or one of it's spin-offs) as it handles large team games very smoothly. Other caveats would be that the size of the battle involved should be achievable with the resources of our group. However much I'd like to do Waterloo, I realize that we simply wouldn't have enough players available to control all the units. So game size should be a consideration. Perhaps limiting things to one area of a bigger battle would work out if people fancied trying one of the really big fights. Models are obviously an issue that should be addressed early on as well. If we go with 28mm, (I'm sure someone will suggest 6mm) plastics would be essential to keep costs manageable. Currently there are numerous ranges from: Warlord, Perrys, Gripping Beast, Victrix, Fireforge and Conquest Miniatures (I think there is another company making early Romans but the name escapes me).The above ranges give options for:Romans, Greeks, Dark Ages, Medieval and Crusades, ECW, AWI, ACW, Napoleonics, Colonials and probably a few others as well.I'd like to try to avoid any duplication of effort for participants. For example, I have 100 Days period British, so I wouldn't want to do Peninsular period British for Napoleonics. (French or Spanish would be possible though).

I'd like to stress that this discussion is open for anyone and everyone to join in and pitch ideas, even if you aren't usually someone who plays historical games.

So, that's the concept, what do you think? Besides Job and myself is there any interest? I have a bunch of ideas, but I'll hold off until others have had a chance to make a few suggestions. Thanks for reading!

As for a historical project, I'm pretty keen on anything. However, the battle I'm most keen on are: Trebia, Zama, Pharsalus, Poitiers, Bosworth, Anegawa, Marston Moor, Seven Years War generally, Marengo, Tavalvera, Fuentes de Orono, Aspern-Essling, Borodino, Leipzig, Quatre-Bras and Waterloo. I'd certainly be interested in another scenario, but for one reason or another, I'd like to do those battles the most.

As for scale, I'd like to do Napoleonics in 28mm, as that is what most of us have already invested countless hours into. Taking our collections as a whole, many of us have a headstart for many possible scenarios, making it seem all the more possible.

Budget-wise, I'm not really restricted. I haven't spent much money on miniatures for about a year. I didn't indulge myself over my Birthday and Christmas, so I figure I have some latitude to spend a bit on something. I can also foot the bill for the venue when the time comes.

Space-wise I'll make the adjustments.

Time, well, that's the rub these days.

Size, I figure we could do a smaller project on the scale of a few brigades (maybe 70-100 miniature each), or massive on the scale of divisions (150-200 miniature each).

Planning, I'm thinking about in a year or two time. I'm in no hurry if we are going to do something massive. It will probably take money, coordination and a lot of painting time, so hopefully with a year or more, we can all finish up any painting without massively displacing our other varried interests.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I'm interested in what you guys would like to do.

job wrote:As for a historical project, I'm pretty keen on anything. However, the battle I'm most keen on are: Trebia, Zama, Pharsalus, Poitiers, Bosworth, Anegawa, Marston Moor, Seven Years War generally, Marengo, Tavalvera, Fuentes de Orono, Aspern-Essling, Borodino, Leipzig, Quatre-Bras and Waterloo. I'd certainly be interested in another scenario, but for one reason or another, I'd like to do those battles the most.

Some nice ideas in there, I recognize most of them, though Anegawa was not one I was familiar with. Looks like an interesting scenario though. A couple of those battles might be too large for the number of possible commanders we would have, but some are definitely possible.

I have an interest in Wars of the Roses and ECW..I already have some minis for each of those. Prim and I have a plan to game the 1st St Albans battle for WOTR, but I haven't been able to stick my head above the metaphorical mound of diapers and duplo to actually finish my part of the (Yorkist) deal. Ah well, at least I have a few Ospreys on the period, that counts for something.All this is to say that I would be very eager to jump in to something big if family circumstances allowed for more prep time. As it is I don't have much of that, so I would probably be letting my fellow gamers down. I'm sure things will be less crazy in time. But I don't know when that time will be.

Prim, I'll try to squeeze out those Yorkists in the coming weeks. The Perry WOTR minis (plastics particularly) are really, really nice.

I do have a bit of a problem here with my interests lining up with the group zeitgeist, heh.

To weigh in, though, since 28mm is the scale we'd do something like this in, I'd be interested in playing any number of games that play to (what are IMO) 28mm's strengths, namely smaller skirmishy games. That'd mean, like, Sharp Practice for Napoleonics / Black Powder, or Saga for Dark Ages / Crusades, or Muskets & Tomahawks, or what have you. I hear Song of Blades and Heroes does Ancients skirmishing pretty well too.

The scale topic is one of personal preference I guess. Agree to disagree?I'm not against doing a project in a non-28 scale, if that is what is decided on. The purpose of doing a community project is inclusion, not intransigence.

Primarch wrote:The scale topic is one of personal preference I guess. Agree to disagree?

Oh, absolutely - I thought we already had. I just wanted to weigh in with some thoughts on ways I might be interested in taking part in something like this at a popular scale. One of my personal gaming resolutions this year is to try and be less intransigent (more transigent?) on the scale front.

If I were to make a 6mm pitch, I think it'd be for Ancients of some flavor, which I know I've talked to job about a little bit.

The Other Dave wrote:If I were to make a 6mm pitch, I think it'd be for Ancients of some flavor, which I know I've talked to job about a little bit.

If you were going to do something with lots of chariots or elephants, I could see the financial appeal to using a smaller scale. In 28mm those things get crazy expensive. They look pretty impressive though.

As for my own preferences, I'm interested in a lot of different things, but for practical reasons, I think any large-scale 28mm project would need to be done with some access to plastic minis, which limits my selection a lot. To further complicate matters, due to prior experiences, any Wargames Factory ranges are a no-go as well. Currently I have:100 Days British for Napoleonics (Black Powder)Brits and Zulus for the AZW (Black Powder)Samurai for the Sengoku Jidai (Pike & Shotte)Early Imperial Romans (Hail Caesar)Celts/Ancient Britons (Hail Caesar)Those could all serve as a starting point for a project, or not as the case may be. They would also be a disincentive to do other projects. (I'm unlikely to do a different range of Romans for example, but I would do their opponents).

I guess I'm good for most things, but my preferred eras would be:Dark Ages - Hastings or Stamford Bridge perhaps?War of the Roses - Careful selection of livery colours would allow you to refight most of the battles.The Crusades - The equipment changed a lot over the period, especially for the Crusaders, but the Muslim forces could largely span a wide period accurately.Teutonic Crusades - The Crusaders are available in plastic, their opponents are a little limited though.

I don't have a deep interest in the ECW, but it's certainly doable. I could probably bring myself to assemble Perrys minis for the ACW or AWI if those were popular ideas.

Hmm, choices, choices.

Going back to the scale discussion above, I was thinking about it a bit. One of the goals for a group project is to play big games (unit count, not figure size), so having more players is better than having less. Would it be safe to assume that people would be willing to participate in games even if the models are monstrously huge/microscopically tiny? How would people feel about a little reciprocation in terms of projects/scales. E.g. Do one project in 6mm and another in 28mm?

That's all I have for now. If anyone else wants to chime in, please do. How about all the non-historic players out there. Any thoughts? "I'm not one for historical games, but I'd love to see .... recreated on the tabletop!"